Some authors want to be nice to their characters, some don’t. And some just murder them all. Come celebrate the opening of the Nine Worlds Books track with tea and cake, and a discussion on writing conflict, danger and character death with some of science fiction and fantasy’s finest authors.

I don’t think many authors murder ALL their characters, do they? I am not actually sure what this panel is about, but there is going to be tea and cake! This is very comforting because you feel that even if you are not interesting, at least the audience has already been rewarded for participation with cake.

We kick off Saturday with the ultimate showdown: heroes vs. villains! Two authors argue that villains are the best, two argue for heroes, the audience decides once and for all. Who will it be? Katniss or Catwoman? Frodo or Darth Vader? Starks or Lannisters? There will be room for audience members to speak on the floor, so come prepared to shout, argue and scream for your favourite side.

I am supposed to be arguing for villains but am trying to swap for heroes. If I seem particularly unconvinced on Saturday, you know why!

‘Anachrotech’ genres like Steampunk give writers, makers, and musicians a chance to tinker with the past, resulting in, at best, a way to reclaim and subvert popular historical narratives and tropes; at worst, a nostalgia that uncritically repeats those tropes. Let’s trade in those rose-tinted monocles for new goggles, and discuss the importance of queering and diversifying the genre.

I feel very unqualified regarding steampunk. /o\ But nostalgia and Anglophilia and reclamation of tropes and historical narratives are all things I can talk about!

Your chance to listen to short readings from nine more of science fiction and fantasy’s most promising new authors. Bring your drinks, bring your friends, contrast and compare these authors to Friday’s authors, but not too loudly.

We each only have five minutes to fill, thank goodness. I am dithering between my Monkey King story, which would be super fun to read but won’t be available in full till 2015, and Prudence and the Dragon, which is fun to read, a very London story, and available to read online if people are intrigued by the reading — but I’ve done it for a reading once before. Hm, now I’ve put it that way it seems pretty obvious that I should do Prudence. But Monkey King is so fun!

Our panellists discuss colonialism, xenophobia and racism in science fiction and fantasy, recommending the best works discussing these issues as well as discussing the problems we face in writing and reading SFF, and what we can do about them.

I have been promised that we do not need to talk about Racefail ’09. It will be cool to be on a panel with Rochita!

I am starting to get excited about this, particularly as the con makes an explicit commitment to diversity and inclusiveness. And the cute logo doesn’t hurt …. Let me know if you are going and we should hang out!

Buy The Terracotta Bride

Read The Perilous Life of Jade Yeo

You can buy my historical romance novella THE PERILOUS LIFE OF JADE YEO as an ebook from Smashwords, Amazon, Amazon UK, and all the other geographical flavours of Amazon that sell ebooks. Or you can read it online for free here on my website. That works too!

Buy Cyberpunk: Malaysia

I edited CYBERPUNK: MALAYSIA, an anthology of short cyberpunk stories by Malaysian authors published by Buku Fixi. It's available in print (from Fixi in Malaysia and Amazon.com outside it) and ebook (Smashwords and Google Play).